


Blowing Up the Time Line

by beatlechicksteph



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25264606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatlechicksteph/pseuds/beatlechicksteph
Summary: Running toward the Forbidden Forest to stop Harry from sacrificing himself for the Greater  Good, Hermione finds herself running headlong into someone who she just watched die. Except this isn't the Severus Snape from her time. Snape is on his way to start working at Hogwarts. Confused about how she ended up in the past, and partnered with a man who really doesn't want to sell his soul to another master, Hermione must decide how much of the timeline she's willing to sacrifice in order to save everyone.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 30
Kudos: 125
Collections: Hermione Granger's Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

Hermione ran down the hill away from the castle and toward the Forbidden Forest. Once she and Ron had made it back from the Shrieking Shack and back to the castle, they had caught Harry running past them. They had made it all the way to the Great Hall and the rest of the Weasley’s when it finally dawned on her why Harry was running the way he was. She turned to tell Ron her realization, but he was wrapped in Molly’s embrace as they cried over Fred’s body. She felt her heart lurch as she looked around the room, and the fallen. So many lives lost. 

Turning away from the scene she backed up slowly away from the Weasley family before running out of the room, and toward the front doors. She needed to stop Harry. She needed to stop him before he became one more body. One more casualty to this senseless war.

She broke through the door and into the night air. Well, she thought as the sun began cresting the trees of the Forbidden Forest, morning air. She sped up as she dashed into the night, and as she began to run down the hill. Her thoughts a jumbled, emotional mess. Visions of Fred. Colin. Remus. Tonks. Snape. She slowed down as visions of Snape’s bleeding body came to the forefront of her mind. She had never seen any one die before. She forced her eyes closed, willing away the image of his broken body lying motionless on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.

She wished there was something she could do. Something to stop any of this from happening. Stop Harry from becoming just another casualty on the growing list. She fought back her emotions as she pushed forward, she was getting close to Hagrid’s Hut, and so close to the Forest. She felt a passing magic over her, causing her to falter and then she ran straight into a hard body, her speed making it so she flew backward, landing on the ground with a hard thud.

She lay still on the ground, gasping for breath, trying to decide if anything was broken, or if she had just had the wind knocked out of her, all while hoping she didn’t just go crashing into a Death Eater. 

“Fuck,” she heard an almost familiar voice groan out. She must have knocked him down in their collision as well. It took less than a minute later before she could place the voice. A voice it should have been impossible to hear. A voice she had spent six years listening to in the classroom. She must have hit her head harder than she thought when she fell to the ground. Because, there’s no way she should have run into Severus Snape.

Severus Snape felt as if he had been hit by a bludger. He had been minding his own business, reluctantly trudging his way up to his new prison, when someone had run straight into him, knocking him flat on his back. He groaned and pushed himself up to his elbows. Laying opposite him, flat on her own back was a young woman, who looked like she had been through hell and back. Her clothes were dirty and tattered, she was dirty, and she looked as if she was in need of a good meal or five. 

Severus pushed himself the rest of the way up, and noticed she clutched a wand in one hand, and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, revealing a viciously fresh scar, a word carved into her arm. A word that made him wonder what the hell had happened to her, and why she was running away from Hogwarts. 

“Fuck,” he groaned. This is the kind of shit he was supposed to be getting away from selling his soul to Dumbledore. 

The girl stirred and sat up, staring at him. He furrowed his brow. It was almost as if she was shocked to see him. 

“What are you doing running like this in the middle of the night, not looking where you’re going?” he demanded, trying out what he hoped was his best teacher voice. Being the beginning of May, so students were still here. While she looked closer to his age, it was possible she was a seventh year. 

He watched as the girl’s eyes welled up, her lip beginning to tremble. “This is impossible,” she whispered. “Am I dead?”

Severus felt his features soften as he watched the girl begin to fall apart in front of him. “I can assure you, you’re very much alive. Just a little bit bruised. I don’t understand why you’re running away from the castle.”

The girl just kept staring at him, and the longer she stared, the more uncomfortable he felt. “I watched you die,” she croaked out, barely audible to his ears. “I watched you die, and now you’re here…” she drifted off, bringing her hands up, dragging them down her face. 

Severus took a step forward, closing the gap between the two of them. He dropped down to his knees next to her, the dampness of the grass seeping through the wool of his trousers. “What do you mean, you saw me die?”

The girl just shook her head. “I didn’t even make it to stop Harry from sacrificing himself to Voldemort. Do you think he’ll show up here too, or deeper in the Forbidden Forest? Do you show up where you die?”

Voldemort. The Forbidden Forest. Harry. Why did that name sound familiar. Severus felt the wind get knocked out of him all over again. Lily’s son.

“What is Lily Potter’s son doing in the Forbidden Forest? He should be in hiding with his parents,” Severus said. “Dumbledore promised me—” 

“Hiding with his parents? Professor Snape, are you okay? You know what happened to Harry’s parents. When you die, do you revert back to a time in your life when you were happy? Because if you do, why am I still here?”

Severus brought his hands up to grip her upper arms. “Who are you?” he asked, desperately. “No one knows that I took this position yet. I haven’t even started. I am not dead. You are not dead. So tell me, what happened to The Potters?”

The girl looked at him, really looked at him for the first time. And he could almost see the gears turning in her mind. 

“What year is it?” she asked quietly.

“What?”

“What is the year?”

“1981. Third of May.”

And then Severus watched as the girl’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, and he moved quicker than he thought he ever could to catch her before she fell back to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love on the first chapter! I was going to post this chapter earlier this week, but my state was hit by a derecho, and I had no electricity from Monday morning through Thursday afternoon. To celebrate the return of my air conditioner and all the comforts electricity affords, here is the second chapter!

Hermione blinked open her eyes and looked around an unfamiliar room. She was lying on a very worn couch, and the rest of the room looked equally worn. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what had happened. They were in the middle of the battle, so many people had died, she was running toward the Forbidden Forest, and then she crashed into—

She sat up quickly. And that’s when she saw him, sitting in an old wingback chair, reading a book. Getting a good look at him in the light of the fireplace really drove home what he had told her before she had succumbed to shock and passed out. 

He was younger than she had ever seen him, very close to her age, in fact. He didn’t look worn or like life had beat him down, or quite so severe as when he had taught her. While he still had his Roman nose and his lank hair, he was what she would consider handsome in an unconventional sense. 

She looked down at herself and realized what she must look like. While they had spent some time recovering at Shell Cottage, spending month in a tent hadn’t done her any favors. Combine that with escaping Gringotts on the back of a dragon and a battle, she was looking rough. Her clothes were torn, and hanging off of her body, since she had lost a lot of weight being on the run. 

“You’re awake,” Snape said from behind his book. 

“I am,” she said. 

“Are you convinced that you are not dead?”

“Yeah, but if what you said is true, I might as well be,” she said. 

Snape closed his book. “Why?”

Hermione closed her eyes, debating what she would be able to tell him. She was in danger of destroying history. Destroying the time line. But, wouldn’t just being here change things? How had she even traveled in time? She didn’t have a time turner. Nothing made sense. She opened her eyes to see Snape watching her expectantly. She knew he had questions. And she didn’t know when in his time line he became a Legilimens, so he could just rip what he wanted from her mind. 

“Before I crashed into you, I was in the middle of a battle in Hogwarts,” Hermione started. Snape sat up straighter, before leaning forward in his seat. 

“What?”

“My friends and I have spent nearly a year on the run, attempting to defeat Lord Voldemort for good. My best friend, Harry Potter, was Undesirable Number One, and the Chosen One to defeat him. Dumbledore had given him a task at the end of our sixth year to defeat Voldemort, for good. That’s what we were doing. I have lived in a tent throughout the English countryside, and I have been tortured by Death Eaters, and we were in the middle of the battle that was going to determine the course of the wizarding world. I was running away from Hogwarts to stop Harry from sacrificing himself. And the most important detail, of all of this, is when I ran into you, the year was 1998.”

The book Snape was holding crashed to the ground, making a loud crash in the room, before he stood from his chair. 

“That’s impossible,” he said. “That sort of time travel, is just not possible.”

“I know,” she said. “I know, but here I am. And I don’t know what happened, or how it happened. I don’t have a time turner any longer. I was just running, and then I crashed into you.”

“And the first thing you said to me…” Snape trailed off, bringing his hands up to his face, cupping his mouth. “And Harry Potter?” he asked after removing his hands.

Hermione nodded. “Orphan of James and Lily Potter.”

She watched as the color drain from his already pale face. “That fucking liar!” he shouted. “He promised.”

She winced as his shout echoed through the small room.

“When?” Snape demanded. 

“Halloween, this year.”

Snape picked up a random object from a side table and threw it at the wall with a great bellowing yell. He stood there, trying to control his emotions. She watched as his shoulders shook as he tried to control his breathing.

“Why tell me this?” he asked, not turning around. “You easily could have lied. Made something up. You are risking changing everything. You can’t expect me not to act on what you tell me.”

“I’m counting on it,” Hermione answered. “I know that my mere presence here has already changed events. I don’t know where we are, but I know we are not at Hogwarts. So my running into you has changed your arrival at Hogwarts. Which will cause ripples,” she explained. “Besides,” she continued, “I was unsure when you became a master at Legilimency, so I figured it would be less painful on my end to just tell you what you wanted to hear, rather than having you rip it from my mind.”

Snape turned then and looked at her, wearing a smirk. “While I wouldn’t call myself a master, I have learned the art of Legilimency, and you were right to guess I had planned to use it to find out what I wanted to know.” He paused. “What I don’t understand is why the Dark Lord would kill James and Lily, but spare the child. He’s after the child. He’s the one he wants dead.”

Hermione looked at Snape, wearing a smirk of her own. “He tried. The killing curse back fired.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that in sixth months time, the Dark Lord would be defeated? But you said you were in a battle with him…” Snape trailed off, and she could tell the moment he had an idea about what had happened. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck!” he shouted again. “He’s immortal. Of course he is. So me spying in order for Dumbledore would be for nothing. How long do I waste in my role as Potions Professor before we realized he wasn’t gone for good?”

“Well, Professor, I enter Hogwarts in ten years time, and we ended that school year, and each subsequent year, fighting him.”

“So you’re saying that I risk my life turning on The Dark Lord, only for him to kill Lily within months, and for him to return in a decade?”

“Basically,” Hermione stated. 

“No,” Snape said.

“What?”

“No,” he repeated. “No, we’re going to change this. We’re going to change everything.”

Hermione froze. “I’m sorry, sir?”

“You said it yourself, just being here, you’ve changed the time line. So why not just blow it to hell? We need to save her.”

“Who?”

“Lily,” he said, as if it were obvious. 

“And James?”

He waved his hand around dismissively, “Yeah, him, too.”

Hermione looked at him. There was so much she didn’t know from her time. Professor Snape had always been an enigma. She knew he had been a Death Eater, and turned spy, why else would he be teaching at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore always trusted him, well, until… She just didn’t know why….

“Sir, why did you switch sides and become a spy for Dumbledore?”

“It’s my fault,” he said, quietly. “It’s my fault they have the target on their backs in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I over heard a prophecy, and I reported it to The Dark Lord. It was about a child who would be born at the end of July destined to defeat him. But I didn’t know The Potters were expecting a child at the end of July. When I learned of it, I immediately went to Dumbledore and begged for him to hide them. To save her. I would do anything. He said he would hide them if I would become a spy for him, come and teach at Hogwarts. I was desperate, so I agreed.”

“Are you friends with The Potters?”

He shook his head.

“Then why would you trade your freedom for their safety?”

He shrugged and turned away. “Does it matter? Apparently it was all for nothing.”

They were quiet for a while, the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fireplace. 

“Why did you bring me here? Why didn’t you just bring me into Hogwarts?”

She watched Snape’s shoulders shrug. “I don’t know. It just felt…right.”

Silence fell around them again, and Hermione grew lost in her thoughts. Did she make a mistake telling him as much as she did? Should she have insisted on him bringing her to Hogwarts and Dumbledore?

Suddenly, Snape whipped around, his eyes wild. “You can help me,” he said, desperation lacing his voice.

“What?”

“You can help me keep them safe. Help me stop him.”

She shook her head. 

“Why not? You’re here. You know what’s going to happen. You have to put that knowledge to good use.”

“There’s upsetting the time line and then there’s destroying it. I know me disrupting your arrival to Hogwarts will cause ripples, but once you go back, we can set the time back to normal—”

“I am not going to go teach at Hogwarts,” Snape interrupted. 

“What?”

“I’m not going to go chain myself to Dumbledore only for him to fail to protect the Potters,” he bit out.

“But—” she couldn’t form the words, her thoughts were so jumbled. And she was exhausted, everything that had happened to her in her time line in the last 48 hours finally catching up with her. 

“Are you going to pass out on my sofa again?” Snape asked, his tone bordering on boredom.

“You have no idea what I’ve been through the last few days. For nearly the last year, as a matter of fact. And now you’re asking me to work with you to change everything and I—” she broke off, as her throat began to contract. 

Snape narrowed his eyes. “You’re right, I don’t know what you’ve been through. You have not told me. You haven’t even told me your name, which gives you a distinct advantage over me,” he bit out. “But what you have told me is enough information for me to decide I’m not going to follow on my current path.”

“Hermione,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Hermione.”

Snape nodded. “And you might as well refer to me as Severus. I am not, nor will I be, a professor, so it is inaccurate to keep referring to me as ‘professor’ when you address me.”

Hermione nodded.

“Now,” Sna-Severus said. “With introductions out of the way, I guess the proper thing to do would be to offer you use of my shower and a place to sleep.”

“No, I—” Hermione started.

“Where do you expect to go?” Severus said. “You are not from this time. I’m assuming you didn’t come here with any money, and I guarantee you if you go to Hogwarts, Dumbledore will not hesitate to rip what he wants to know from your mind, without asking permission, the moment he learns you are from the future. I have a spare room,” he continued. “I live alone. My home is not much, but it’s something.”

Hermione contemplated his offer. He was right, she didn’t have any money. She had her bag, but they had run out of money a while ago. And after reading about Dumbledore’s life and talking with Aberfoth, she knew Severus was right. Dumbledore was not an option. And after spending months on the run, just the thought of not having four actual walls and a roof over her head made her want to cry. 

But, at this point in time, Voldemort was not only at the height of his power, Severus was an active Death Eater. Which was different from her time. It was one thing to know your professor was once a Death Eater, but it was another to be with him before he had defected and lived years as a professor. 

“I’m a muggleborn,” she said.

“What?” 

“I’m a muggleborn,” she repeated. 

“And I’m a half-blood. I don’t see why this is relevant information.”

“Well, as an active Death Eater, I wanted you to be aware of who you were offering a place to stay,” Hermione bit out at him. 

Severus narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a fucking racist,” he growled. “That is not why I—” he cut himself off. “Your blood status doesn’t matter to me.”

“Okay,” she said. 

“Okay?” Severus asked. 

“Okay, you’re right. I don’t have anywhere else to go, and I’ve spent several months living in the woods in a tent, so I don’t want to be living on the street.”

Severus narrowed his eyes. “I have a lot of questions about where you come from, based on that sentence alone, but I will choose to let it go. For now.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything. 

“Come,” Severus continued. “I’ll show you to the extra room.”

Hermione stood to follow him, and as she walked, she could feel her head starting to feel fuzzy. It was probably exhaustion. She hadn’t slept since they had left Shell Cottage for Gringotts. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to clear it. All she needed to do was make it to the room, which apparently was upstairs, and she could lie down and sleep for days. And get food. She definitely needed food. 

Taking things slowly, she was able to make it up the stairs, and she followed Severus to the room at the end of the hall. He opened the door and she looked inside at what was obviously the master bedroom.

“I trust that as a witch you are able to perform the necessary spells in order to make this place hospitable,” Severus said, dryly. 

“Yes, I can manage.”

“Very good,” he said as he took a step away from the door. “I will leave you here. Since I had intended to be taking up residence at Hogwarts, I no longer have any food in the house. While you rest, I will take it upon myself to visit the store and pick up some provisions.”

Hermione nodded. 

The two stood in the hallway, surrounded by awkward silence, before Hermione gave Severus a little nod and retreated into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. 

She took her wand out and waved a quick cleansing charm over the bed before collapsing into it. Her eyes were closed almost the instant her head hit the pillow and she drifted off into a much needed sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for all your kind words. I'm sorry I haven't been responding to any comments. Over the summer I signed with a literary agent, and I had an editing deadline of this past Friday to get her my manuscript for editing. Now that that is done, I have a lot more time to focus on my fanfiction. Even though I haven't responded, know that I appreciate all the comments!

Severus kicked the door shut behind him as he walked into the house with the bags of groceries he was carrying. He’d never had a house guest before, let alone a female one, so he didn’t know what he would be expected to provide. 

He picked up essential for tea, and a few things to throw together for breakfasts and lunches, and he figured they could always get take away for suppers. Maybe. If he wasn’t going to go through with teaching at Hogwarts, he was going to need to find a way to make some money. His meager muggle inheritance was almost depleted and he had been counting on his job at Hogwarts to get him money to survive on. While the salary was meager, the room and board for most of the year more than made up for it. 

However, after meeting Hermione, and knowing The Potters would still die, he didn’t want to sell his soul to another person. He had major regrets in his life. The largest being the mark on his forearm. 

He moved into the kitchen to put the groceries away. He glanced down at his arm and willed it to not burn. He didn’t want to be called by The Dark Lord any time soon. He had convinced him that he would be going to Hogwarts to spy on Dumbledore for him. Get some secret information about the other side. 

Well, now he wasn’t going to Hogwarts. And he didn’t want to go back to being a full time Death Eater. He had been looking forward to not being called due to being at school full time. Now…

He slammed the cupboard shut in frustration. He longed to be free. And the only way now would be to kill the fucker. He looked up at the ceiling. The girl was the key to his freedom. He knew it. He didn’t believe in fate, but there had to be a reason she had shown up where and when she did. 

He didn’t know anything about time travel, but what little he knew, you needed a time turner, and you could only travel back hours, not years. And she wasn’t even trying to time travel. She just showed up in the forest. 

He made a note to take a trip to Flourish and Botts and pick up some books on time travel. The biggest question to him would be could they actually change things, or was time a loop?

A scream cut through the silence of the house, and was immediately cut off. Severus frowned and moved toward the stairs. His foot had barely stepped on the first step when the door to his parents’ room came flying open and he caught a quick glance at the girl as she dashed across the hall into the small bathroom before slamming the door behind her. He made his way up the rest of the stairs and paused at the closed door. He heard the toilet flush, and then the unmistakable sound of sobbing, and quickly backed away. This felt too personal for him to get involved with. He didn’t do feelings. He especially didn’t do feelings of people he had known for a couple hours. 

He quietly moved down the stairs and back into the kitchen and put the kettle on. While he didn’t do feelings, he was British, after all. Perhaps a nice cuppa would calm the girl’s nerves and maybe cheer her up. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he would feel if he had been ripped from everything he knew and thrown into a completely different environment. 

He heard the water start running upstairs, and pulled out things for sandwiches. He hoped she wasn’t a picky eater. 

The water didn’t run for long, and by the time he heard steps on the stairs, he had the sandwiches and the tea on the small table he had in the kitchen. He turned around when he heard her enter the kitchen, and stopped. 

It was amazing what a shower did. While he had thought she was marginally attractive at best early this morning when he first met her. Now. Well, with her hair pulled back away from her face so he could get a good look at her, he had to turn away to hide the blush that rushed to his cheeks. While she was much too skinny, she was…pleasing to the eye to say the least. He shook his head to get his thoughts together, as to not embarrass himself. 

“Did you sleep well?” he asked, busying himself with moving the milk and sugar to the table since h didn’t know how she took her tea. 

“I slept,” she said. “Which is something I haven’t done for at least twenty-four hours before arriving here, so that’s something.”

“I heard you cry out, are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m fine. It was nothing.”

Severus frowned, but didn’t pry. “I have made sandwiches and tea, please, help yourself.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “I’m actually quite hungry.”

They sat at the table, and he watched as she fixed herself some tea, and took timid bites of the sandwich. They ate in silence, and Severus took note of her stopping about half way through her sandwich and pushing it aside. 

“So are you absolutely certain you’re not going to be going to work at Hogwarts?” Hermione asked, as she sipped her tea. 

“Absolutely. I don’t see any reason why I should go to work with a new master if he can’t even keep his promise.”

“Well, I can think of a few,” Hermione said. 

“And those are?”

“Well, for starters, the library would be a great resource for figuring out why I’m here. I’m sure there are texts in the restricted section on time travel, and the phenomenon occurred on Hogwarts grounds, so I’m sure the key to why I was thrown into the past could be there. Secondly, if you were defecting to get away from, you-know-who, you would be safe on Hogwarts grounds until we can figure out a way to sever your ties to him. And lastly, if you were serious about smashing the time line to pieces, there’s something at Hogwarts that would aid greatly in our mission to destroy you-know-who before he can kill The Potters.”

Severus sat back in his seat, and crossed his arms over his chest. He had to admit, she had some good points. 

“What do you mean find a way to sever my ties with The Dark Lord? I’m sure you know that I am marked and it is impossible to remove. I have tried.”

“Nothing is impossible,” she simply replied. “I’m sure with enough research we can figure something out.”

“Another thing, you keep saying ‘we.’ Last I checked, I was the one with the job, not you. How are you proposing getting yourself at the school?”

“Well, I left before completing my seventh year at Hogwarts, because of what was happening during mt time, I can just go to Dumbledore, lie about my age, say I’m wanting to transfer from abroad, and enroll as a student.”

Severus shook his head. There was no way he was going to let her become a student of his. Not when he was attracted to her the way he was. There was no way he was going to go in as a teacher and then struggle with staring at a student’s tits. “No,” he said. “If you would come as a student, it would be nearly impossible for us to work together without arousing suspicion.”

Hermione sighed. “Then what do you suggest?”

“You can be my apprentice. I’ll admit I’m a little young to have an apprentice, but I’m still a master. It’s a good cover. And it will get you in the door at Hogwarts.”

Hermione looked at him, and he held his breath while he waited for her to answer. It was a stretch, but it was the best idea he had. And if she were his apprentice and not his student, he wouldn’t feel dirty if he looked at her every once in a while. 

“Fine,” Hermione said. “That’s a better idea. But do they give apprentices quarters at Hogwarts?”

Severus shrugged. “I don’t know, but that’s something we can figure out later. The important question is: do you know Occlumency?”

She shook her head. 

Severus nodded. “Starting tomorrow, Occlumency lessons. We can’t take take any chances of Dumbledore using Legilimency on you and finding out you’re from the future.”

“Agreed,” Hermione said. “I can’t believe I didn’t even think of the chance he would do that.”

“The bastard will try and read your mind the second you walk into his office. He’s subtle, and you wouldn’t even notice it. The only reason I notice it is I’m an excellent Occlumens.”

“And humble,” Hermione said, with a smile.

Before he knew what he was doing, he gave a soft laugh to himself. And then he sobered up. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed with someone. 

“That’s me,” he replied. “Definition of humble.”

Hermione laughed at that. “So, Occlumency. How do I know you’re not planning to teach me in order to rip things from the future from my brain, and then ditch me to blow up the time line yourself?”

Severus shook his head. “You’re just going to have to trust me, I guess.”

“Trust. That’s something I don’t have a lot of these days.”

“In your future, I’m obviously your professor. And you don’t trust me?”

“I did,” she replied. “And then last year…” she trailed off. “Well, let’s just say you do something that truly cements your role in the war. And you destroyed any trust anyone on our side had for you.”

“Can I make the argument that I’m not that person, yet? That, in fact I’m at my most trustworthy seeing as I’ve just defected.”

Hermione groaned and wiped her hands down her face. “Fine. Tentative trust. For now. But you can’t go ripping through my brain trying to find specific things. I’ll tell you what I think is useful to help our cause, nothing more.”

Severus sneered. “Fine.”

The two slipped into silence again. Since they were strangers, and Severus wasn’t used to socializing, especially with pretty women. 

He watched as she brought her tea to her lips, hand trembling slightly. He frowned. “Are you alright?” 

She set down the tea and hid her hand under the table. “I’m fine.” She looked anywhere other than him. He kicked himself for even asking, he just managed to make things even more awkward between them. He looked at her dirty clothes, which looked out of place on her freshly washed body. 

“I have a washer, and a clothes line. I can lend you something to wear so you can have clean clothes.”

She looked down at her clothes. “I would appreciate that, thank you.”

He stood up from the table and started toward the stairs. He heard her stand up and follow him. He walked into his room and dug through the drawers until he found an old t-shirt and some athletic shorts from his youth. She was smaller than him, so clothes from his youth wouldn’t need a lot of transfiguration.

“Thank you,” she said, quietly, taking the offered clothing from him. 

“Just set your clothes outside your door and I’ll take them down and run them.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” she said. “Just show me—”

“You can hang them when they are finished washing,” Severus interrupted. “I’m not a house elf, but I’ll be hospitable and start the wash. If all goes to plan we’ll be at Hogwarts and neither of us will have to do laundry again.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “I only have Muggle clothes. I don’t have any robes. We went on the run in August, and then we couldn’t go back to our safe house. I only have like two outfits. Nothing appropriate for an apprenticeship. And I have no money—”

“Breathe,” Severus interrupted. “We’ll get an advance from Dumbledore. Make up some sob story that will tug at Dumbledore’s heart, some bull shit that’s close enough to the truth he’ll have to buy it.”

Hermione gave him a small smile, and then turned back to the bedroom. “Thank you, Severus,” she said quietly.

“For what?”

“Everything. I just,” she paused. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t crashed into you and you brought me to your home. And lending me your clothing, I…From what I could tell from six years as your student, I know you’re a private man. So, just thank you.”

Severus didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded. And watched as she shut herself into her room. He moved to his own room and picked up his pile of dirty laundry before moving back into the hallway. He stooped down to pick up the pile of clothes Hermione had left outside her room, and as he made his way to the wash, he tried hard to not think about the woman wearing his clothes behind the closed door.


	4. Chapter 4

“Are you even trying?” Severus bit out once again as he pulled out of her mind once more. 

They had been trying Occlumency lessons for the last week, and she was not getting any closer to mastering it. The first couple days Severus had her reading theories in books and gave her the task of trying to practice building mental walls. He said the first step would be to keep people out completely. The second would be to feed false memories, or carefully curated memories. After she felt she had a pretty good idea of what to do, she told Severus she was ready for some practical practice. Apparently she was wrong. 

The last few days they spent the morning a few hours with Severus invading her mind and her trying to block him. However after a few hours, she had a splitting headache, and they were no closer to getting her to the point where she could keep Dumbledore out.

And Severus was becoming more and more frustrated. He had written to Dumbledore saying he was coming to Hogwarts a week later than originally planned, and he was bringing an assistant. He would explain in person when they arrived at Hogwarts. And now they were due to leave for Hogwarts the next day, and she couldn’t keep Severus out, let alone form false memories. Which meant she was screwed when she came to face to face with Dumbledore. 

“You know I am,” Hermione spit back. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’m doing everything the book said to do.”

Severus sighed. “You need to keep me out, at the very least, before tomorrow. I think I’ve been going to easy on you.”

“This is going easy on me? Yesterday I couldn’t stand up my head hurt so bad. What the fuck is going hard on me?”

She watched Severus stiffen at her words, and she smirked inwardly. She could tell Severus was attracted to her. He had been acting weird around her all week, and tried to not look her in the eye ever since he had done her washing. And to be honest, it was a mutual attraction. She never thought she would find her dour potions master attractive, however, seeing him now, just a few years old than her, at his prime, not bogged down from years of spying, she wasn’t going to lie, she wouldn’t say no if he were to make a move. Which she made a note to never mention or Ron or Harry if she ever found her way back home, and if the time line she made her way back home to was anything close to the time line she had left. She pushed that thought from her mind. In the mean time she would enjoy pushing Snape’s buttons by watching his reaction anytime she said anything that could remotely be taken as sexual. 

“Up until now I’ve just been going after inane memories. Memories from your childhood. Nothing that if I knew would make much of a difference. Easy. This next time I’ll be going after something more recent, something you won’t want me to see. Something to motivate keeping me out. Hard.”

Hermione swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “Do it. Go at me hard, I can take it.”

Severus leaned in closer to her, which wasn’t difficult, as they were already sitting knee to knee, and looked her in the eye. “Oh, I’ll come at you hard, but can you give as much as you can take? Push against my intrusion?”

“Try me,” she said, her words coming out almost breathless. They had been playing this dance for the last week,and while it was fun, this push and pull between them, she thought maybe they should just snog and get it out of their system. 

She felt Severus place a hand on knee, something he hadn’t done before. He was really good at keep them physically separated. And then he whispered, “Legilemens,” and then he was in. She could feel him ripping through her mind, and she fought to build the walls she could have sworn she was an expert in building at the beginning of the week, but learned quickly they were difficult to build when you were distracted by someone ripping through your mind. 

Severus finally paused, like he found what he was looking for, and she started panicking. It was the scene she dreamt about every night. The reason she kept silencing charms up after she went to bed at night. She saw herself on the Malfoy drawing room floor, Bellatrix hovering over her, pointing her wand at her, screaming questions at her. She froze. She couldn’t even try to build walls. She just sat there, letting the memory play out, watching herself get Crucio’d. When Bellatrix pulled out the cursed blade, she panicked. She didn’t want Severus to see what happened next. She had done everything she could to keep her arm hidden from him. She didn’t want his pity. As Bellatrix leaned down, bringing the blade to her arm, Hermione let out a scream, and focused everything she had and suddenly she was back in the living room, staring into Severus’ eyes, breathing heavily. 

She closed her eyes, feeling them begin to fill with tears. She struggled to get herself under control, but everything was drawn up to the forefront of her mind, rather than just something that haunted her nightmares. 

“I’m sorry,” Severus said, quietly. “I wanted to know about your tremors, the ones you think you’re hiding from me. I thought perhaps you were addicted to some potion or muggle drug and you were going through withdrawal. I didn’t think—”

“That I had been tortured on the floor of your friends’ home?” she spit out. She stood up, and moved to leave, but Severus stopped her with a hand on her wrist. 

“Hermione—” he started, but she cut him off. 

“Let me go,” she said, struggling to hold back her tears. She wasn’t going to fall apart in front of him. “I think perhaps it would be best for you to go to Hogwarts without me tomorrow. You can send for me if or when you can convince Dumbledore you need an assistant.”

She didn’t wait for a response, instead she wrenched her arm out of Severus’ grip and practically ran up to her room, slamming the door behind her and throwing up silencing charms. She flew to the bed and collapsed, curling into a ball. And sobbing.

Severus watched as Hermione fled, and felt helpless. He had just wanted to find a personal memory to help push her into being able to block him from her mind. He was getting desperate. They were to meet with Dumbledore tomorrow, and she wasn’t even remotely ready. He decided to quell his curiosity a bit, and hope it would be enough to rile her up and want to keep him from seeing. He couldn’t have even begun to guess that the tremor she had was from that.

He had recognized Malfoy Manor immediately, and same with Bellatrix. She was older, but still recognizable. Without any context, he didn’t know how or why Hermione was where she was, or what Bellatrix wanted, but he did know that the woman he had been living with for the past week, the one whom he was massively enjoying flirting with, who would flirt back for some insane reason, was tortured. 

And just like that, his motivation to blow the fucking time line to hell, changed. 

Hermione didn’t know when she fell asleep, but when she awoke the sun was beginning to set, and the room had grown dark. She sat up in the bed and rubbed her eyes. They were swollen from her crying. She leaned back against the headboard, and sighed. She was going to have to tell Severus about everything now. All because she couldn’t master Occlumency. And there was no way she would be able to go to Hogwarts and face Dumbledore now. If she couldn’t block Severus from her mind, how would she be able to block Dumbledore, one of the best Legilmens alive?

She and Severus would just have to figure out how to work together with her staying here and he at Hogwarts. There wasn’t any other solution.

She stood from the bed and stretched. She needed to go down and talk to Severus. Best to just pull the plaster right off. 

She opened the door to the room and froze at the sight of the dark man sitting with his back against the wall in the hall. His back was against the wall, and his legs were outstretched, crossed at the ankle. He was reading a book. 

“Severus?” she asked once she was able to find her voice. 

He looked up at her and she could see him visibly tense. Like he was waiting for her to yell at him. 

“Hermione,” he said. 

She leaned against the door jamb. “Have you been out here long?”

“A couple hours. I wanted to make sure I caught you when you left. I wasn’t sure if you would leave to use the facilities and then lock yourself back in.”

“I was actually planning to come look for you. I owe you an explanation—”

“You owe me nothing,” he interrupted, moving to stand. He stood in front of her, a serious look on his face. “You did not want to tell me about the future, unless it was on your terms. And I took advantage of our situation and I pried. I apologize.”

“You don’t need to apologize. You warned me that you were going to go after a memory that would motivate me to push you out. I just wasn’t prepared for you to go straight for the my worst memory.”

“Is that why you sleep with silencing charms?” Severus asked. 

“You noticed?”

He nodded.

“I have nightmares,” she explained. “I don’t want to bother you.”

Severus shrugged. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone. Were you taking any potions back in your time for your tremor?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t really have time to get on any sort of long term treatment plan.”

“Do you,” Severus paused, and looked at his feet before continuing. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Hermione sighed. “Are you asking because you care about how I’m feeling, or are you asking because you want to know something about the future?”

Severus’ head snapped up and he looked her in the eye. “Am I really such an asshole where you come from that you even have to ask that?”

Hermione stood back, and gestured into the room. “If I’m going to talk, I’m going to do so sitting down. Would you like to join me?”

Severus shook his head. “I don’t go in that room,” he said. He reached out, and took her hand. He gave it a tug, and she followed him across the hall into his room. “We can talk in here though.”

He opened the door, and she looked inside and immediately her heart reached for him. The room didn’t look like it had changed since he was a young boy. The room was sparse, and held few belongings. It did have a double bed in the center, however, the bedding was plain. Hermione chose not to comment. She knew very little about Professor Snape’s early years, but from the bits and pieces she had gathered from living here, it didn’t seem as though he had a happy childhood. 

They stood there awkwardly before Severus gestured toward the bed with his wand, making it up. 

She decided to put an end to the uncomfortable air in the room, and moved toward the bed, and sat down on it, leaning back against the headboard. A few minutes later, Severus followed, and perched himself so he was on the opposite side of the bed, leaning against the footboard. 

“I don’t know where to start,” Hermione said, quietly. 

“You’ve not finished Hogwarts,” Severus said. “How does a student get entangled in all the mess of war? When I was in school, The Dark Lord refused to mark anyone prior to graduation. And I know Dumbledore had the same rule, I over heard some Gryffindors lamenting the fact once. Yet, you’re a student, and you were entrenched enough to be tortured by active Death Eaters.”

“Hazards of being best friends with The Boy Who Lived.”

“The Potter boy,” Severus said, quietly.

“The Potter boy,” Hermione confirmed. 

“So, you got preferrential treatment?”

“No,” Hermione said. “We were magnets for trouble. And after he returned in my fourth year, constantly under attack. Moving into our seventh year, we were tasked with a mission from Dumbledore that only Harry could accomplish, so we didn’t go back to school. Well, I wouldn’t have been allowed to go back anyway, being Muggleborn. We went on a hunt for these items. We made a stupid mistake, and were captured. I was able to disguise Harry at the last minute to make him unrecognizable, but with me and our other friend with us, it was fairly obvious who he was. Just as they were about to call him to them, Bellatrix noticed we had an item that was supposed to be in her vault at Gringotts. 

“She sent the boys to the dungeon and kept me in the drawing room. She tortured me, but I wouldn’t tell her where I got the item. She was about to give me to Grayback, but we were saved by a house elf. We were brought to a safe house, and I was patched up to the best of their abilities. We spent a couple weeks recovering and planning, and then we were on the move again.” 

“There is a potion that can help with the spasms caused by the Cruciatus. I’ll start the brew after I return from talking to Dumbledore tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Hermione said. 

Severus shook his head. “It’s the least I can do, to repay you for the help you’re going to be providing to take down the Dark Lord.” He paused. “I think it is best you don’t come to the Dumbledore meeting tomorrow. Your shields are weak to nonexistent, and I don’t trust Dumbledore to use anything he pulls from your mind for anything remotely beneficial to our cause. I’ll go alone, and put in a case for you. If he declines, we’ll find a place for you in Hogsmeade, and I can visit when I am able.”

Hermione bit her lip before answering. “Are you sure? You were so adamant about me coming and there was no way we could accomplish this unless I was living right with you.”

“That was before I knew you were fucking tortured just a few weeks ago,” Severus snapped out. “We will do whatever we can to please Dumbledore and make sure we aren’t overtaxing you.”

“I’m not weak, you know,” Hermione bit out. “I was participating in a fucking battle before being thrown back here.”

“I’m not implying you are weak,” Severus said. “But I watched you get tortured. And you just told me you haven’t had a break. That you’ve been on the run for nearly a year. The last thing you need is for fucking Dumbledore to be the last straw when he rips into your mind tomorrow. You need to rest, and you need the rejuvenation potion I will be brewing for you. I don’t need you falling into a coma or losing your mind. I need you to help me break free from the psychopath I’ve mistakenly tied my life to.”

Hermione looked across the small bed at Severus. Really looked at him. He was truly being sincere. He really did care about her well-being. It was getting hard to reconcile the man she knew as a teacher for six years, the man who killed Dumbledore, with the man sitting her on the bed. 

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll do things your way. I don’t really want to see Dumbledore anyway. At least not yet.”

“I’m going to create a better cover story for you,” Severus said. “Something a bit more sob worthy, something to tug at the old man’s heart strings. That way it will be impossible to say no to.”

“Maybe stick to the real story, but embellish it a bit,” Hermione suggested. 

“Good idea,” Severus agreed. “We’ll keep your name, no sense in changing that. If you do get on at Hogwarts, calling you two different names would just get confusing. We’ll also keep your age and blood status. Making you a victim of blood purity will help, are you okay keeping that portion of your backstory the same?”

Hermione nodded. 

“Good. We can say you’re a dual citizen of France and England, being that you’re the child of divorced parents. Divorce is more common among muggles than magical people, it will be easily believed. You were enrolled in Beaxbatons, but were visiting your parent in England over the summer between your sixth and seventh year. On your return, you were stopped by Deatheaters and captured. You were held and tortured, and upon my defection, I freed you and aided in your recuperation. Now, I want to bring you with me to Hogwarts as an apprentice to protect you from getting killed.”

Hermione let out a low whistle. “You came up with that on the spot? You’re pretty good.”

“Well,” Severus said, “I had some time waiting for you to come out of your room.” He reached down and picked up some papers he had laid on the floor when they had come into the room. “I also took the liberty to create some false identification papers and transcripts to help sell your story. I hope I haven’t overstepped.”

Hermione smiled. “Of course you haven’t. You were brilliant. I hadn’t even begun to think of a back story. And here you are, you have papers to back you up.”

“Dumbledore’s a smart man,” Severus replied. “If we have any holes in our story, he’s going to find them. We need to be prepared.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “From what I remember Harry telling me about Dumbledore, he has an uncanny ability to read you. “Which probably just means he’s a really good Legilimens and you can’t feel him enter your mind.”

“That’s precisely it,” Severus replied. “When I went to him for help. When I defected, he entered my mind. It was very subtle. If you didn’t know what to look for, you would have never noticed.”

Hermione brought her legs up to her chest, hugging her knees. “Why did you defect? Why did you join the Death Eaters in the first place?”

Severus was quiet long enough that Hermione was certain she had overstepped her bounds. But then he spoke, so quiet, she had to strain to hear him. 

“My childhood was not a happy one. My father was a muggle, and mother a witch, and my father was not accepting of her differences. In fact she had kept it a secret until I began showing signs of accidental magic as a toddler. He was a drunk, and when he was drunk, he was violent. Mum tried her best to shelter me, but the more my magic manifested, the more he took his prejudices out on me. 

“My saving grace was a neighbor girl, a muggleborn witch who started showing signs of magic. Lily. We were best friends. And I began to feel less alone in the world. We were inseparable. Until we went to Hogwarts and were sorted into separate houses. I was put in Slytherin, she in Gryffindor. Once in school, she spent more and more time with her housemates, while other members of her house bullied me. For years. Just because I was in Slytherin, and because I was poor. But she still tried to be friends with me. The final straw came in fifth year. The Marauders were being particularly cruel, and she tried to help, and I snapped at her. Called her an unforgiveable slur, and she never forgave me. 

“All during this time, the boys in my house were kind enough to me, and they took notice of my skills. Lucius Malfoy felt my potions skills could be useful to his master. Tempted me with a mastery. Of fame and glory. After I graduated, I met up with Malfoy and he brought me to meet him. He said all the right things, and the next thing I know, I’m willingly branding myself in loyalty. It felt nice to belong somewhere. I went off to get my mastery, returned, and soon discovered what I had signed up for was not what I had expected. 

“I was on thin ice. I didn’t want to participate in the revels. I didn’t want to participate in the killings, and Lucius warned me the Dark Lord was about ready to expel me from the group. And I knew that the only way out was death. I felt it was fortunate I happened upon Trelawny’s interview with Dumbledore and I managed to hear a prophecy. I brought it back to him, and immediately I knew I spared my life by proving my usefulness. And then I learned the prophecy could be referring to my old friend and her new baby, and I knew I had to do something. So I went to Dumbledore. He promised he would keep the Potters safe if I agreed to come work for Hogwarts and become a double agent. I foolishly agreed.

“And that is the everything. I was a lonely child, who became a lonely teen who made a terrible choice to not be lonely, which led me to become a lonely adult.”

When Severus stopped talking, Hermione could feel the sadness growing in the pit of her stomach for the man in front of her. One wrong choice, a decision made in a moment of desperation, and it changed the trajectory of his entire life. And the only way he could see getting out, was to sign his life away to a different master. No wonder the Severus of her time was the way he was. He looked so, dejected. Like he was waiting for her to reject him after hearing his story. 

She reached across the bed, and grabbed onto Severus’ hand. Giving it a tug until he relented and let her pull him across the bed until he was sitting next to her. Once he was settled in his new spot, Hermione wrapped her arms around his torso and rested her head on his chest. She could feel him tense before he relaxed, and brought his arms stiffly around her. 

She didn’t say anything, she knew if she tried to express any sort of pity on him, he would close back up, and push her away. Instead, she lay on the bed, and tried to physically say everything she wished she could say aloud. 

Eventually she could feel him relaxing more, and his hug began to feel a bit more natural, and that was when she finally allowed herself to relax. She closed her eyes, and listened to his breathing and the beating of his heart, and let those things lull her into slumber.


End file.
